AP News 2011

Holiday Break

API Staff will be taking a break for the holidays between December 19th-30th. If you have a need during this time or would like to make a contribution, please contact Samantha. Please don't forget to considerAPI's annual appeal and respond with a financial gift to support API's 2012 mission.

API hopes you are experiencing balance and taking some time to nurture yourselves during this often busy time of year.

API Response to the Milwaukee Anti-bedsharing Campaign

Our hearts are broken at the loss of precious lives in Wisconsin. API is moved by and shares this passion to definitively halt similar ongoing sleep-related tragedies. We also agree and support information that would discourage bedsharing for those who are not healthy/safe candidates. Still, to say that no parent should ever have the baby in bed...

Remembering Minda Lazarov (1955-2011) - API former Board member and Resource Advisory Council Member

Tribute by friend and API cofounder Barbara Nicholson. Our dear friend and sister in the cause of healthy babies and families passed away on October 6th. Minda Lazarov will always be a legend to so many people in the world of breastfeeding, nutrition, and environmental health. I first met her at a park in...

API Releases Summary of 2010/2011 Accomplishments and Plans

Falling in love with API - Why love API and the work it does - Read more

October Membership Special

Come PLAY with API. To play along with API, play with your family and friends by splitting a membership or buying a great gift. That's right, it's our 2-for-1 special. Buy 2 memberships for the price of one!That's the equivalent of one free movie ticket or two cups of coffee! Don't let this special pass you by. ** Processing will take 2-3 weeks.

The API AUCTION Needs Donations Now, Won't You Please Help?

Our auction starts in three weeks and only lasts for two, so if you love API, contribute to parent support by making or collecting something you love to our upcoming online auction. Give support, get support.Click here to make your donations to the 2011 auction.

Share Your Play Stories with Us!

Submissions accepted for a short time only!

Share your experiences with play in your family! Submit a short essay or blog post about play to help us celebrate our upcoming AP Month theme of "Families at Play: Nurturing the Parent-Child Connection through Play." Your story may be eligible for feature in our upcoming AP Month Carnival of Blogs. Event details at AP Month Central.

Enter the AP Month Photo Event!

Get us your photos soon! AP Month starts in 18 days!

Help us celebrate our upcoming AP Month theme "Families at Play: Nurturing the Parent-Child Connection through Play." Send pictures illustrating play in your family and get your work seen in API publications!

July Membership Promotion

Have you ever wondered about tough traits like greed, helplessness, and self-centeredness? Join todayand listen to "How Much is Enough" teleseminar for free. As a bonus, help a support group by joining todayso that they can receive $15 of your membership dollars. Indicate your support group upon membership submission. Not part of a support group but would like to help out? Take a look at our support group pageto help you select your group of choice.

Parent Resources to help children after disaster

Our hearts and prayers go out to all the families and their children throughout the world and in the U.S. who have suffered devastating losses due to the recent series of natural disasters. We hope the resourcesthat we offer will be helpful as you heal and care for your families.

Dealing with Storm Aftermath – Look for Warning Signs in Kids

Regular monthly tests of tornado sirens can put many people on the edge of their seats because of recent events. And it's not just adults. Children can be especially affected by television coverage of disasters, such as the tornadoes ravaging Joplin and Tuscaloosa, or the raging floodwater in Tennessee.

Mary Elizabeth Curtner-Smith, associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Alabama, was just two miles from the tornado in Tuscaloosa. She says it's important to limit how much disaster coverage a child watches. Read More...

Action for the API U.S. Community

The U.S. is one of the countries with the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Forty-nine countries around the world do a better job of preventing women from dying from pregnancy-related complications than the U.S. [1]

Approximately 90% of these deaths are preventable.[2] Despite these terrible maternal outcomes, there are no requirements that states track how many women are dying related to pregnancy and childbirth and why this is happening.

The Maternal Health Accountability Act (HR 894) would give states the resources they need to report and investigate all pregnancy-related deaths as well as create a panel of medical experts to review the data and recommend strategies to reduce maternal deaths. This is a critical first step to preventing so many women from dying from pregnancy-related complications in our nation. After all, without information about why women are dying, we cannot adequately respond.

We can't wait to act. While maternal mortality has decreased by 30% worldwide, the rate of death from pregnancy or childbirth has nearly doubled in the U.S. since 1990.[3] Furthermore, data show that African American women in the U.S. are approximately four times as likely to die during childbirth as Caucasian women even when their health status is similar.[4]

API Founder Barbara Nicholson on Healing Talk Radio

Barbara Nicholson, co founder of Attachment Parenting International, was Healing Talk Radio's special guest on Wednesday May 11. This program will replay 3 times daily for a week, starting May 16th. Replay times are 2 am, 9 am and 5 pm Mountain time. Read More...

Parent Resources to help children after disaster

Our children come to us for insight and understanding about the world, but as their parents, even we struggle to make sense of the recent devastation of natural disasters and the overwhelming heartbreak they cause. At API, we grieve for all the lives lost and families broken apart or hurt in each one of these inexplicable tragedies. As an education and support organization, API joins with other organizations in reaching out to support our hurting communities by offering two excellent resources for parents of young children.

API's Mission Depends on Our Volunteers!

How many volunteers keep API humming? Who is behind some of those position titles and why do they do it? A note about volunteering and fostering empathy and more are in this year's special tribute to all our volunteers.

API Reads, API's own book club

Come read with us the book Playful Parenting. We will be reading Playful Parenting for the months of May, June, and July. Larry's book has received a 4.5 star rating from 59 reviews on Amazon.com. It is a book that almost every API leader puts on their favorite list to share with their members. As a bonus, you'll be able to submit Q&As for him in the month of July!So let's get started reading!

No Spanking Allowed This Week

If you've ever been a parent, you know how difficult it can be to raise a child. Deb Sendek, program director of the Center for Effective Discipline, says spanking was once considered effective discipline - even just a generation ago - but now has been shown by research to be ineffective.

Many parents instinctively don't like to spank their children, but they don't know what else to do, Sendek says. She describes spanking as just a form of punishment that causes pain and fear, but doesn't translate to positive discipline.

"If you're trying to teach a child a lesson and you have a child who is looking at you, thinking 'You hurt me, why should I listen?' or 'You hurt me but you say you care,' those things don't really translate." Read more.

National Child Abuse Prevention Month

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month - a time to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect, and create strong communities to support children and families to raise safe, healthy, and productive children. PREVENTION is the best hope for reducing child abuse and neglect, and improving the lives of children and families. Parenting is one of the toughest and most important jobs in America.STRENGTHENING FAMILIES and preventing child abuse requires a shared commitment of individuals and organizations in every community to ensure that parents have access to the resources and support they need to understand and meet their children's needs and protect them from harm. A child's relationship with a consistent, caring adult in the early years is associated later in life with better academic grades, healthier behaviors, more positive peer interactions, and an increased ability to cope with stress. Learn more about how strong and nurturing bonds between children and their parents creates stronger families and communities. We can all help increase public awareness about child abuse and neglect and building supportive communities - learn about simple things you can do to help.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

Name of product: Infant Bed-Side Sleepers

Units: About 76,000

Manufacturer: Arm's Reach Concepts Inc., of Oxnard, Calif.

Hazard: When the fabric liner is not used or is not securely attached, infants can fall from the raised mattress into the loose fabric at the bottom of the bed-side sleeper or can become entrapped between the edge of the mattress and the side of the sleeper, posing risks of suffocation.

Incidents/Injuries: CPSC and Arm's Reach have received 10 reports of infants falling from the raised mattress into the bottom of the sleeper or becoming entrapped between the edge of the mattress and the side of the bed-side sleeper. No injuries have been reported.

Description: This recall involves a product called a "co-sleeper" by the manufacturer. One side of the bed-side sleepers is lower than the others to allow positioning near a bed and access to the infant for care and feeding. This recall includes all Arm's Reach Original and Universal styles with manufacture dates between September 1997 and December 2001. The manufacture date and model number can be found on a sticker on one of the product's legs. Model numbers included in the recall begin with:
Originals - 8108, 8133, 8111, 8112 & 8199
Universal – 8311

Sold at: Burlington Coat Factory, Babies R Us and other retail stores nationwide from September 1997 through December 2001 for about $160.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled bed-side sleepers and visitwww.armsreach.com/instructions to view and download assembly instructions and to make sure that the product is properly configured. Consumers should also contact the company by phone or via the company website to receive hard-copy instructions by mail and an assembly/warning label. Consumers who are missing the fabric liner or other components should immediately contact Arm's Reach for an alternative remedy.

Senate Committee Lifts Age Limit for Breastfeeding in Public

A Senate committee voted today to remove the current age limit for breastfeeding in public, but not without some senators fretting that they were going too far.

"Is 35 a child?" asked Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson. "I know that sounds crazy, but I'm thinking of a situation in a bar where maybe things got a little crazy."

"I know I'm going way out on a fringe thinking a 14-year-old, but weird things happen in our society," said Watson.

Sen. Ophelia Ford, D-Memphis, said she had "read somewhere" of a mother breastfeeding a 5-year-old in a restaurant and that would make people uncomfortable. Read more.

TN Senators Tackle Change to Public Breastfeeding

Legislation to remove the 12-month age limit for children who can be breastfed in public is up for debate this week in a Tennessee Senate committee. Tennessee is among 44 states with laws allowing a woman to breastfeed in public, although it is the only state that includes an age limit for the child.

Barbara Clinton, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Health Services, says removing the limitation is in the best interest of parents and their ability to meet their children's needs.

"To have an arbitrary gate upon which it's no longer legal to breastfeed in public makes really no sense from a health point of view, from a cultural point of view – or even from a legal point of view." Read more.

Know Your Parenting Story

While many debate what attachment parenting is, this short video written and produced, and song composed and performed by our creative and passionate Board Member Lu Hanessian, captures the essence.

Help a Support Group Today

It is vital that we provide support and education to communities everywhere that have or will be starting a support group in their area (national and international). These support groups rely on funds to remain operational and effective. When you become a member or renew with API you have the option of $15 of your membership dollars going to one of the support groups you designate. Help a support group today byjoining or renewing with API. Take a look at our support groups to get started!

Babies Injured in Cribs Easily Prevented

According to the Tennessee Department of Health, more than 1,000 infants have died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the past 10 years in Tennessee. Now, an infant-sleep researcher says many of those deaths could have been prevented - by putting the child's crib in the same room as a sleeping parent.

Dr. James McKenna, biological anthropologist at Notre Dame University and the director of the Mother/Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory, says the idea that infants need to be separated from the rest of the family at night is false. Read more.

Crib Injuries Average 26 Daily in the United States

Nearly 10,000 crib injuries in children younger than 2 years are treated in emergency departments in the United States each year, with about two thirds of the injuries resulting from a fall, a new study suggests.

Elaine S. Yeh, BS, and Gary A. Smith, MD, DrPH, FAAP, and colleagues from the Center for Injury Research and Policy, Research Institute, at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio reported their findings online February 17 in Pediatrics.

According to the researchers, this is the first study to use a nationally representative sample to investigate injuries among young children associated with cribs, playpens, and bassinets. Read more at Medscape(Medscape is free, but you may need to create an account to view the article.)

Parents Compete for Attention of Screen-Saturated Teens

Parents should be wary of too much "screen time." A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study of 2,000 children aged eight to 18 nationwide found they spend an average of over seven hours a day interacting with digital media.

Lu Hanessian, mother, journalist and author of "Let the Baby Drive," says too much screen time makes it difficult for children to relate to their parents and other children. Read more.

Charity Gift Cards from CharityChoice – give just like a commercial gift card

IRS Reverses Stance on Breast Pumps

The Internal Revenue Service has done a turnaround on the deductibility of breast pumps as medical expenses.

The IRS issued Announcement 2011-14 on Thursday, advising the public that expenses for breast pumps and other supplies that assist lactation may be deducted as medical expenses or reimbursed under a flexible spending arrangement or similar plan.

The agency came in for considerable criticism last fall when it decided that breast pumps and other breast-feeding supplies could not be paid for with money from mothers’ tax-exempt flexible spending accounts and health reimbursement accounts. Read more...

Tell Disney: Stop Branding Newborns in Hospitals

Disney is taking cradle-to-grave marketing to a new low, branding babies literally at birth.

To promote its new Disney Baby line, the company now sends marketing representatives to intrude on mothers and their newborn infants in maternity hospitals around the country. They talk up Disney Baby, give newborns a onesie adorned with Disney characters, and urge moms to sign up for email alerts from DisneyBaby.com.

Is nothing off-limits for Disney’s marketing machine? It is bad enough that media companies routinely brand baby paraphernalia to secure a lifetime of lucrative loyalty, but it is reprehensible for marketers to inject themselves into the relationship between a mother and her baby at birth.

"What I wish for parents to gain from reading my book is that a secure parent-child attachment is nature's intent for all mammals and effects our children and our world holistically. A secure parent-child attachment requires compassionate nurturing, freedom and joy in living and learning and meeting children's holistic needs from pregnancy through late adolescence. When children act out, it is a natural alarm signaling to us that something inside of the child or in the child's environment is distressing to them. We can heal children's behavioral, emotional and learning challenges by heeding these natural alarm signals and reconnecting to nature's cycle of parent-child attachment."

Surgeon General's Call to Action: A Roadmap to Improving Support for Breastfeeding Mothers

Three out of four women in the United States provide their infants with the healthiest start in life by breastfeeding, and today Surgeon General Regina Benjamin called on the entire nation to support the removal of barriers to this important public health behavior. The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding is an unprecedented document from the nation's highest medical source, calling on health care providers, employers, insurers, policymakers, researchers, and the community at large to take 20 concrete action steps to support mothers in reaching their personal breastfeeding goals.

The United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) applauds the Call to Action, which is based on the latest evidence about the health, psychosocial, economic, and environmental effects of breastfeeding. The document includes action steps and implementation strategies for six major sectors of society:

Mothers and their Families: emphasizes the need to educate and inform families about the importance of breastfeeding, and provide the ongoing support mothers need to continue.

Communities: calls upon the entire community to support breastfeeding mothers, including the provision of peer counseling support, promotion of breastfeeding through community-based organizations and traditional and new media venues, and the removal of commercial barriers to breastfeeding.

Health Care: urges the health care system to adopt evidence-based practices as outlined in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, provide health professional education and training, ensure access to skilled, professional lactation care services, and increase availability of banked donor milk.

Employment: calls for paid maternity leave and worksite and child care accommodations that support women when they return to work.

Research and Surveillance: emphasizes the need for additional research, especially regarding the most effective ways to address disparities and measure the economic impact of breastfeeding, and calls for a national monitoring system.

Public Health Infrastructure: calls for enhanced national leadership, including creation of a federal interagency work group, and increasing the capacity of the United States Breastfeeding Committee and affiliated state coalitions.

According to USBC Chair Robin Stanton, "The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Support Breastfeedingtruly paints the landscape of breastfeeding support in the United States, demonstrating a society-wide approach to removing the barriers that make it difficult for many women to succeed. The United States Breastfeeding Committee urges all Americans to be proactive in using these action steps as a springboard to extend support so that mothers throughout the country get the care, help, and encouragement they deserve. USBC looks forward to partnering with both public and private entities on implementation of the action steps."

Happy New Year

Become an API member today and receive the teleseminars at the member price of only $9! Not a member? In honor of 2011, enjoy the teleseminars with this January special of an 11% discount on teleseminars. To take advantage of the 11% discount enter in the code JMTL2010.

Each teleseminar brings you insight and encouragement--listen to Dr. James McKenna on sleep, Dr. Jean Illsley Clarke on what our kids need, Dr. Sears on child health, Susan Stiffelman on power struggles, Nadine Block on spanking, Lu Hanessian on making mistakes, Scott Noelle on parenting together, Ina May Gaskin on birth, Naomi Aldort on behavior, Kathleen Kendall Tackett on post-partum depression, Gordon Neufeld on attachment and older children, and so many more.